I can still hear the cell doors closing. It was like a cackle of evil as the steel doors clacked and clocked. If you were sleeping a dream of love, family, good sex, and food…there was nothing like that echoing ghost to wake you up into reality.

My brother is in there…

He tried to reach me but that prison phone isn’t designed to help, it is designed to make you pay money to some private company so you can talk to your friend or loved one. That damn prison phone. How dare you hold my brother for ransom and make me pay, using something new called telephone extortion.

That prison phone is always taken too. Have you ever sat on a steel stool under bright lights waiting for an open phone to call your loved ones. Add a small, neurotically controlled room filled with many different forms of violence, rape, molestation, mental illness, broken homes, and what you have is fear and anger. You need both to survive.,

Back to the story.

There i was, walking in the humid and sticky golden sunshine of Florida when I receive a phone cal from a Texas number. For the first two minutes I am talking to a machine telling me someone in jail is trying to reach me.

Really? Hmm…who could that be?

I guess they forgot we were human…

Someone in prison turned out to be my brother who is not by blood, but by bond. He was there for me when I was down and out, and I am repaying the favor. I do it for reasons that are not for me to know or understand, just do what is right and pay it forward.

At first I am kind of angry and feel upset about the whole situation. He was doing good, he was getting involved with a church group and AA members, he was slowly getting his life back together.

He fell…and he fell hard.

But then I remember the power that exists in working with another on solving problems, like defects and dysfunction, and I remember how to exercise that power. It is in guiding another towards a common goal of surviving that we find what it means to love.

I accept the call by pressing 0 and finally get to talk to my brother. We both wasted 30 seconds bitching about how the phone was cheap on time, until he gave me the address to the facility he is in down in Maryland.

We get disconnected. I am walking down my street and this computer voice tells me to get out my credit card to set up an account. I shake my head in disgust at this low blow to humanity’s balls…

I get out a piece of paper and a pen, and I do something that is a forgotten relic of the slower past: I write him a letter. Not just any letter, one that connects to him to a level of understanding. This is the only way to work with someone and help them recover from anything.

In that letter I tried to give him so much love, compassion, and kindness on top of stern, angry, frustrated sentences because I was hurting. My brother hurt me the way he wasn’t being healthy, or taking care of his kids, or being a better husband to a wife that when together would mix into police and court cases. I love them both, and I love their two boys. They are so young and have a good chance of growing up to be the next savior!

That is how we go from being on one side of life to another. From darkness to light. From dope to hope. From death to rebirth into a new person.

I am happy to say that today my brother is out of prison. He is not just free physically, but there is something about his spirit that gives him this personal freedom, all to his own. It is times like these that I stop, take a moment to breathe, and realize just how important words can be. When I think back on the phone calls from that Texas private prison number, I remember wanting to break him out but the only way out…was for him to do it on his own with his personal belief in God.

Today he is living like God.

Thanks for being beyond a best friend to someone I consider family by bond. We are just like Bill and Dr. Bob, and the funny part is most people don’t even know who the two greatest movement starters since Jesus and Moses’ time!

Let’s go out and see if this magazine can’t do what the Big Book did! But this is not about AA or NA, this is about UA: UniversallyAnonymous

Not long ago I was frantically searching my room in the basement of a D.C. Bloods training house trying to find something to eat my cold can of clam chowder with. The room (not much bigger than this cell I am in) was covered with graffiti: messages of blind hate on every wall. After sifting through a pile of dirty laundry and releasing the previously dormant stench I found my toolbox. Inside was a collection of old needles and a spoon that was still filled with the dried crusty remains of amphetamine I had injected days earlier.

You see, the reason this arrogant white Bostonian came to live in a black families basement in the ghetto of our nation’s capitol…is the result of an unhealthy obsession coupled with the inability to be completely honest with anyone, including myself. So this is me being completely honest, right now. I choose to tell the truth, just for today, which is all I have left.

There is an ever widening hole in my soul called addiction. I managed to convince myself that love was the reason I hit bottom…more lies. The thought almost provokes laughter at this point, as I stare at the cement walls surrounding me. In order to protect the names of the guilty, this unhealthy obsession for a doleful damsel I shall call Eve.

I was so arrogant and blinded by this obsession that one day things would be like they were before, back when we were a happy couple with two beautiful boys…I refused to let her go. I had such low self-esteem I could not be honest with her. Eight years and our two boys and “I love you” was probably the only honest part of our relationship. In the words of Trent Reznor, “love is not enough”, and Eve herself left a message in sharpie on my wall stating: “love can’t survive on lies”.

True enough. I could put point out the hypocrisy in her writing that on my wall but focusing on her faults is what kept lies in my mouth and needles in my arms. The truth is I have spent most of my life judging the behaviors of others all the while behaving just like them. I was a true white trash scum bag. Few who knew me escaped harm. Collateral damage. I meant no harm to others but that doesn’t matter when all I cared about was me and the drugs.

I was a broken man.

I was skipping and bouncing off the bottom headed for certain doom. I had some moments of clarity when the pain got bad enough to bring me to my knees. 12 step programs, prayer, and recently Jesus seemed to powerful allies in this war for my soul, but the arrogant liar inside of me kept taking back control. No one has suffered as much as I have in the history of humanity and I deserve better! Right! Poor me! Two beautiful children and a lifetime of second chances, all the while possessing above average intelligence, looks, and an uncanny ability to entertain. Poor me! It’s laughable now but I really did feel this way, and believed it as the only way.

Fast forward 12 days ago at 2 a.m.

I am giving Eve a ride to a heroin dealer with no license and a warrant for my arrest. Headlights appear in my rear view and I say out loud: “God help me”.

As soon as the words pass my lips the flashing blues come on and I was arrested. I am facing 10 plus years worth of charges with $40,00o bail. God still loves me! After 11 days of detoxing I was on my knees praying in the holding cell ready to accept my fate. “God please help me” I pray, “you know what is best for me, thy will be done.” The door opens, I am brought before the judge and told the Distract Attorney is seeking a “no jail time deal”.

Rehab is the deal. My spirits are lifted and a peace washes over me. Hope is restored. God is the answer but faith without works is dead. We each have a different path to follow and I still don’t know my purpose but I do know it is not MY path…it is His. As I write this in my cell I am at peace. I have hope, and I know love. Gratitude is an understatement and humility is the wind lifting the wings, like a phoenix rising from the ashes we can ALL rise if we can just see the truth and get over ourselves.

Sometimes in life we go through heartache, and heartbreak. Many choose to be silent, decline the world. Some eat ice cream and cry to their friends. But this young writer and poet, Charlotte Davidson, chose to write about it. In this poem, entitled “Coffee,” Charlotte tells the story of a boy who lured her in with new things. He “volunteered things [she] never knew,” so she was automatically interested in him and his tendencies. In the 2nd stanza, she describes how the relationship wasn’t what she expected, explaining that “concord streets just aren’t for [her].” But near the end of the stanza she exclaims that even though she chose to leave him, it wasn’t fair that he left her abandoned. No call, no texts, and no emails. She tells the boy in the 3rd stanza that “we were more than just a social affair,” meaning that he still meant something to her. Near the end of the poem she says that she sees him again, and she tells the reader that she wants to go back to him.

This poem is for everyone who is still stuck on an ex. It combines traditional rhyme with extensive vocabulary, and it uses the motifs of coffee and blue throughout the poem. These motifs are malleable to the reader, and can represent what they think they represent. The repetition really lures in the reader, just like the boy lured in the girl. This poem is one of my absolute favorites, and it plays towards every heartstring out there. Enjoy.

Just before bed I got an email from my father with Richie in the subject line. I already knew and let out something about God…but I wasn’t shocked to hear of the family friend overdosing on drugs. I lay in bed thinking of his life, and how I met him, and what his last moments must have looked like…

We all have a path to walk in life. We all have different stories about where we come from, where we have been, and how we got to be where we are now, today. Well today I want to tell a story about a man who walked a path that not many will ever see in their lifetime, nor would they ever want to see…the life of a famous junkie.

But he was so much more than just a junkie. Society labels them as sub human and writes them off because of the bad behaviors associated with being a junkie. A junkie is someone who is in so much pain that they are willing to do ANYTHING just to feel some release, some relief, anything but the pain inside that exists like a parasite in the heart. If you have not walked in the shoes of a junkie, please do not have anything but compassion in your mind.

The story of Richard Abrazinski, aka Abrakadabra, starts in Worcester in the 60’s. I don’t exactly when or where he was born, but those are minor details. Richie was a special kid, I never met him when he was a kid but judging by the way he acted in his 30’s and 40’s, I can only guess how crazy he was as a youngster.

When I met Richie I was a teenager living on Martha’s Vineyard. How Richie and I met was through my father’s connection with him. My father is a great man and he tried to help Richie when he could through the 12th step of Alcoholic’s Anonymous. I would see him working, and at that age I was just realizing that this man was out on work-release from jail. I remember working alongside him while he and another family friend Jimmy (he was the one who picked him up from jail). The energy Richie had was boundless, and he never failed to make you smile simply because his voice and his laugh sounded so…likeable. He could charm the pants off a panther he was that good. I liked him immediately, and almost looked up to him because at least he didn’t care about acting normal or afraid, Richie was confident in his ability to work hard and have fun.

Richie’s problem was having too much fun. I found that out one day after running into him at Cumberland Farms, which on the island of Martha’s Vineyard is a place where all walks of life co-mingle, and this walk of life was walking tall that day. I saw him about a quarter mile away walking towards the store from the ferry docks. He had a distinct way of walking, a distinct look, that gave him away every time. Richie got closer and noticed me, and this big fucking smile splattered his face and I knew we were in for a good time.

That good time lasted a week, and involved many drugs and a lot of booze, and also a car chase with my father and mother in separate vehicles trying to make me pull over and hand over the keys. I was not in a good state of anything to even be behind the wheel of a car. I couldn’t believe how controlling and oppressive they were, and why they would not just leave me alone to do what I wanted. It was a classic case of denial mixed with fear and dishonesty. I denied the fact that I was sick and running with another sick person who like me did not care that we were driving around high on cocaine, coming off of being drunk, with a loaded shotgun in the back seat going on a mission from god to who knows where.

Luckily that little story ended well without anyone getting hurt. I ended up back in jail and so did Richie. That was one of the many negative things we had in common: drug addiction, jail, and rehab. When Richie was in Jail, I would be in a detox or a rehab, and when I was in jail he would be out in about or in a program trying to work and save money like the rest of us. When we saw each other at an AA meeting it was like dynamite and fire getting together again for one more explosive show.

Until I changed. I saw the truth and I recognized the path I was on was leading to destruction. It had already destroyed my body, my relationships with lovers and family, and now it was threatening to destroy my life completely. I was 26 years old and a mess from doing too many drugs, and they were really powerful ones like crystal meth. One of the last times I saw Richie he was just getting out of Cambridge jail where he was locked up for getting high in an MIT bathroom in Boston. He was using crystal meth, and judging by how powerful that drug is I can only imagine what kind of horror show was on display in that bathroom. God bless him for trying to beat this addiction.

That is the message I want to give to everyone who knew Richie. He was so much more than an overdose, he was more than a junkie, he was more than a crazy sonofabitch who always got in trouble. Did anyone stop to think why he always got in trouble? Sure he needed a place to stay, so he got arrested. Not many know of that level of desperation. No, he wanted love. He wanted to be touched, he wanted attention, and that was the only way he knew how: acting out and getting caught.

He was not a brilliant criminal, in fact he was kinda dumb the way he would do crimes in broad daylight in downtown areas. I heard stories of his Maine life where he was a real bad cat. I heard about how he ran the Maine state prison system, but they were just good stories to me. When we were together, it was usually a crime. We shared mostly intoxicants together, and the times we had were spaced between jail and rehabs. So my memories of him are cloudy and hazy. But I hold onto them and I will never forget that big huge kid named Richie.

The last time I saw him alive was in November right around Thanksgiving time. My parents were away from the Vineyard and I was living on Cape Cod, I came over for the week to watch the dog and to meet my sister with whom I shared turkey day with. I was picking up some antibiotics at the pharmacy when I pull in and who do I see walking my way from the liquor store, as if he knew I would be there, smiling all the way. He was moving slow, and rocking from side to side the way he usually did, but something was different. He looked older. All my life I always saw him as young, and full of life, even if he was so filled up with drugs it was pouring out of his pores! I gave him the keys to my dad’s truck and told him to get in I will give him a ride somewhere.

I walked into the pharmacy and immediately I picture Richie driving away in my father’s truck with my dog in the back seat wondering why this crazy pollack is driving, not me. I wondered the same thing as I went back out to make sure this did not happen. He was still trying to unlock the door when I got out there, and I told him to get in the passenger seat. He obliged. I got the keys and proceeded to get my stuff.

At this point in my life I was moving to Florida and trying to be healthy as over the past year and a half I had been through a couple surgeries and overcome a massive addiction to crystal meth. My body was tired but recovering slowly but surely. I was running and beginning to work out. I began eating healthy and meditating so my mind would calm down. Ever since using crystal meth I have never been the same…it changed me, some ways bad but mostly good. It made me super spiritual and unafraid to face the future, as well as the past. Life was taking on new meaning and for the first time I felt ready to accept it and to practice the principles which would ensure I would live a better life.

In comes Richie, my old running partner who I never said no to and who I would have done anything for at one point. I loved the freakin guy! So many people did, and that is what is so sad about Richie’s story. So many people tried to help Richie get on his feet and back on track. When he was sober he was the most stand up guy one could ever possibly meet on the street. Richie had a heart of pure gold and was not bashful or shy about giving it to complete strangers. They would stare at his huge 6 foot something figure which was intimidating when he got out of jail all buffed up, and he was covered in tattoos so you know people kind of glanced at him a couple times to make sure he wasn’t going to hurt them. Richie was gentle giant who mellowed out in his later years. He wasn’t the hardened felon living in Maine state pens, he was just another guy struggling to overcome the darkness that was inside of him.

I get in the truck and he already has a baggie of a white powder ready to go. He offers some to me, so kind. I refuse. I tell him I am all about being healthy now, and that I don’t feel like getting high anymore. I try to talk to him about getting something to eat and talking but who the hell wants to do that when you are getting high? No one I know, and especially not this guy. He already saw someone else he knew, and he knew everybody, so we say a quick good bye and he gets out of the truck. Looking back I wish I grabbed his arm with the might of God and held him close, and told him what was going to happen to him if he kept using drugs. I now see what it was like to be in my father’s shoes, to love someone but not able to help them or reach them as they slowly committed suicide right in front of you. Powerless is a good word. Never has a word become more than just letters and a meaning, powerless becomes a part of you in those situations when a drug addict chooses to kill himself rather than ask for help and choose another way of to live.

I wonder if Richie ever truly lived?

What is his legacy that he left behind for us?

Prison, crime, felony, rehab, detox…I remember he came into detox on Cape Cod right after I did. We had been on a bad run and we both knew it would end with some sort of hospital stay. Actually we were lucky to make it out alive and free from prison. The chances an addict takes with his life is insane, and that is why people love to judge them! There I am, playing cards with some fellow addicts and alcoholics who I had become fast friends with in a few days since I was able to walk.

A woman named Beth spoke up about this crazy giant who came in the night before with one leg in a cast and who woke up half the hallway when he came in. He was quite intoxicated and even picked up this little counselor who Richie just loved because the counselor worked out and I guess he thought that it would be fun to pick him up and carry him around. Anyways, I wondered if it was Richie. So I asked what he looked like.

She described a tall, built guy with light blonde hair and sleeves of tattoos. I asked her if he sounded like this: “Hey, BRO!” I made an impression of someone who drank whiskey and smoked cigarettes their whole life, and she nodded her head yes! She was amazed to find out we were friends. I was out when he came in, but the story goes he was out in the courtyard jumping around with a cast on drunk, and using his belt to show off his moves by whipping it against a wooden post while hitting on the local lady patients.

I told her all about our adventures, and we became lifelong friends based on just knowing Richie. That was the legacy he left behind for us to remember and to never forget how he touched our lives. We should all thank Richie for the sacrifice he made for us. Perhaps the reason he overdosed was to save someone who might have ended up with the same fate. I know Richie helped me more than I realize by the way he lived. His life is a lesson to me that teaches me that it isn’t something to waste and it isn’t something to take for granted.

Everyday I wake up and I find something to be grateful for, even if it takes a while or I feel depressed or sad or out of it. I find something to thank God for being alive today. Today I woke up and I thanked Richie for the memories and the moments that I will never forget as being times when I was truly myself, and it was because of Richie that I was able to be myself. He had a power inside of him that I regret had to wither away and die. He was in his 50’s, and I can’t believe he survived so long that way he lived.

Today, let’s take a moment to be silent in our minds and hold someone we love in thought. Breathe in love and breathe out any sickness which might have taken them or us…breathe it out and let the healing power of the universe respond by the opposite reaction which is health and positive vibrations return to your body and uplift your soul to a higher level. A level beyond the suffering hurt or pain that might exist between you and another…and transcend the pain to a certain kind of peace: serenity…God grant me the serenity…do you really believe he grants it to you, or are you just saying it because everyone else is?

Today, let’s remember our good friend and family member Richie Abrazinski. I will miss his laugh, and I will miss his stupid voice, and his love. May you finally be in a place where you don’t have to run anymore.

Forgetting modesty for just a minute, I want people to be happy, if there’s a way to help someone I will, and I try to put the needs of other before mind. Sometimes my good intentions can stray from where they should be, but then again so can every ones. I tell the truth when it matters most, I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, or smoke.

I know what hard work is, and unlike a lot of people I know, most the time I would choose that over the easy out. I grew up in a place where I never heard the words I’m proud of you. I grew up in a place where the words I love you only came after things like “Okay it’s time to go into surgery.”. (I tried to come up with another example, but I couldn’t find one.)

The place I grew up was hard, strict, and unforgiving. I don’t say all this for sympathy, or for pity, because no one benefits from either of those things. As I write these words I remember things that I have said to people for years after telling them the stories of unfairness at my “home”. (Yes notice the “”).

I do know that the people that raised me raised me right, and the person I am today is a lot because of them. In way I would like to thank them, because, as sad as it may sound, it taught me who I should not be. It taught me the different between wrong in right. Examples: 1.Kicking out their 18yr old, because she slept over her friends house after them saying no? -that is wrong.

2.Trying to push them to wear certain clothes, by insulting them? -wrong.

3.Threatening to take away everything, because they don’t want to go to church? -wrong. 4.Giving one of their kids piano lessons, but not giving the other one guitar? -wrong The way I see it: 1.Communication at a very early age is very, very important. 2.Who cares?

4.You can’t force religion on someone.

5.Be fair. Anyone reading this could say that I’m being stupid, and hey I might be, but when you see that you’re being treated unfairly especially from the ones you want to make proud, it’s hard.

When all you want to to be told you did well, even if you know you did, it kills you slowly to realize it’s a losing battle.

When no human power will stop you from doing this one thing…you are powerless over it and I can tell you now that your mind will not think so. Your mind is the ruler of your life and unfortunately it will lead you down the wrong road to pain, suffering, and our good friend misery.

Listen to your thoughts…

What do they smell like? Some thoughts stink of negativity and fear, and leave you with a sour taste in your mouth. We as humans do not understand our own thoughts and where they come from. But once a thought comes in, it is how we deal with it that matters, how we act out the thought is the crux of all behavior.

Everything begins with one single thought.

Say a thought comes in to your head that is so completely crazy, yet legitimate and almost reasonable that you consider it, you play with it, you entertain it.

For example: you just got out of jail after serving a year for getting high on drugs…

And a week after you are out…the same thought that came into your head that got you into trouble in the first place reappears. At first you dismiss it like a bug, but it keeps coming back and landing on your consciousness…

You know in your rational mind that to do drugs again is pure suicide and will probably end in either jail or death, if you’re lucky.

Yet something is not right inside. You spent the whole year playing cards, playing ball, and working out. Not to mention many many many lonely nights masturbating to pictures in maxim and curves…nothing really changed you are still the same person who went into jail a year earlier…just another year older…inside you are carry the weight and load of resentment and rage born out of a traumatized childhood…but it went undiagnosed and there you stand at the crossroads for the thousandth time.

All it takes is a decision.

The fear can seem so real and the lies so convincing that it looks impossible to not take something into your body to escape the demons hunting your peace and hunting your sanity…

You keep imagining that drug and how it will make you feel, that rush, that sweet release….

Then God gets tired of helping you and realizes you are not ready to serve the good army and help others….which is why we are all here…

For Lt. Edward J. Walsh and Michael Kennedy, thank you for the sacrifice you made on that last alarm call. We are forever in your debt. God bless their souls and sincere condolences to the families of Walsh and Kennedy. God be with you to the injured fire fighters in the hospital recovering from the back-draft…may you overcome this challenge and live to laugh another day. God bless your souls.

To ease the suffering of those who lost someone they loved in a fire that was too strong for them, we bow our heads and pray for the pain to be relieved, imagining the situation and realizing that hope can be found in the worst of places.

Even in the grave, some places reveal more than just grief and sadness at the idea that our loved on is physically gone forever. We send you love from our hearts as we give love to our kids and our mothers and father.

We love a little bit stronger because of these tragedies. It is like a pendulum swinging back and forth, from peace to gut wrenching pain that tears you apart inside. I have felt that pain, although different circumstances.

We send you this letter because we want you to know that you are not alone, and that the community of good people watched the news and cried, and the community being the brotherhood of good that it says it is, ran to action and we not only send love and prayers but stories, and poetry, and expression of suffering through any form of art…

And the healing begins…

For the two souls whose bodies were overcome by flames and smoke in the Back Bay of the great city of Boston, my home forever…

He walks alone in the morning sun feeling the sand beneath his feet as he trudges onward, forward, continuos one step after another towards an unknown fate. He trudges. And trudges, legs heavy with regret and anger, head light with thoughts of giving up. What drives this sorry excuse for a human being on his last chance to do the right thing? What motivates him? Why does he continue to get back up after every fall…and he falls hard.

Up ahead in the distance is a group of people, strangers to him, sitting around in a circle.

He watches his feet sink into the sand after each step, approaching this group of men and women as if he knew them all along. He takes a seat in the sand outside the circle and says a modest hello to no one and anyone who cared. Immediately he feels a change coming over him, something is changing what it is he has no clue.

The outside world did not exist anymore.

All that mattered was the moment and how it was shared with one another. Who were these interesting and different characters wearing bathing suits and sunglasses?

These were members of a secret cult. One of the nicest and most welcoming cults too.

For the first time all day, perhaps all week, he shut up and listened. This was amazing to his friends, who judged him or didn’t care why he went to this cult.

In this cult he sits on the sand in a nice beach, in the morning, while people on vacation walk by and look. He listens to another persons life and experience told through voices he recognizes as being good people, good souls. To him the meeting is a form of meditation. His mind never stops tormenting him with a constant onslaught of thoughts. This is how he changes from a bad person who hurts others to someone who has a heart of love and gives it to others.

The world around us is growing dark with shadows and if you don’t believe in demons then you have been fortunate enough to not meet one! Watch the news for 10 minutes and you will see suffering and pain, and no answers!

The answer is in changing from within. Why do you we still scratch at the surface with our opinions and our titles of expertise? When has that solved those problems? Yet when something tragic happens like a plane crash or a mudslide that instantly kills hundreds and rips away our friends and family…what does the authority do? Camera mobs stalk and harass the privacy of these hurting and grieving people who are so fragile yet we as a collective society don’t even talk about it…maybe between the audience but overall the problem only worsens and we all suffer.

Until one of us changes within and begins to express that change to his community! Calling all superheroes where are the good guys?

Help one another, and stick up for your neighbor, get to know one another…because when it comes down to it, we are only worth the amount we help others…not a bank balance or popularity or number of twitter followers…get real!

He raises his hand in the silence of the circle, and a woman sitting directly across from him noticed the man on the outside and pointed her finger indicating he could speak.

The circle was focused on this young man in his twenties who began with his name in a Boston accent. Slow and deliberate he tells everyone he is new to the area, and doesn’t know anyone. He talks how alone he feels in the battle against evil and the negative things in life like addiction and other disorders. How hard it is to keep positive during times when suicide seems the only option! He tells this group of strangers where he is from, and what his life was like, and how he changed from a bad person into a good person. He speaks in a voice that rises in confidence as he goes on connecting with the circle.

He notices men and women nodding their heads once in a while, and he notices them actually listening to what he says.

He describes how his world is so misunderstood and so lost in confusion and ignorance. He tells the group that he needs help, and he tells them why: so he can get back to what he loves in life!

He doesn’t come to this meeting because he is an alcoholic, he comes to this meeting because he needs to connect with other people, and share the pain that is inside of him.

He tells the truth, and he listens to others express themselves through self-analysis and introspection. Half way through the meeting he feels different compared to at the beginning when he sat down in the sand outside of the circle.

He is just like me and you, a regular guy, who cannot be himself without first finding what that self is and looks like.

The meeting lasts an hour and everyone seems to stand up on cue. The strangers look to their left and right and grab the hands extended to them. The circle is now connected by human links, and the energy is pure love and healing power that exists in the middle of the circle.

As people walking by on the beach stare at this strange event happening right in front of them, the circle recites the Lords Prayer in unison.

This is what happens at an AA meeting, that stands for Alcoholics Anonymous, and it is the greatest movement that is still saving lives of hopeless addicts across the world!

The thing is? These meetings are for everyone. And they are secret and anonymous, so people walk right by because they weren’t invited!

Bill Wilson is the founder, and in the book of AA he says that one day…this 12 step process could help everyone, not just addicts.

Let us suppose, for sake of example, that on a certain Monday, your affairs are in such a condition that, humanly speaking, certain consequences are sure to follow before the end of the week.

These may be legal consequences, perhaps of a very unpleasant nature following upon some decision of the courts; or a physician may decide that a perilous operation will be necessary.

Now, if someone can raise the consciousness of the harassed individual above the limitations of the physical plane then the conditions on that plane will change, and, in some unforeseen and normally impossible manner, the legal tragedy will melt away, and to the advantage, be it noted, of all parties to the case; or the patient will be healed instead of having to undergo the operation.

In other words, miracles, in the popular sense of the word, can and do happen as the result of a change of consciousness, and a change of consciousness is usually accomplished through prayer. Thus prayer does change things.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts(Isaiah 55:9)

Let’s explore something new, something different, something that could be used to rise up above the low level of fear, worry, anxiety, and stress disorders…they are not disorders, they are just imbalances of the brain which can be fixed by a what?

A miracle.

I am a miracle, you are a miracle, we are eternal my friends, and we live one hell of a story. You have always been with me, my friends, even during times I didn’t want you…I didn’t want anyone…I wanted to be dead…

All around me I recognize fellow souls kindred to mine, and when we connect and talk to one another we are discovering new worlds. As stars collide and are reborn we collide with one another and exchange elements, thoughts, words, ideas, laughter, tears, appearances, judgments, past in the present moment. It is almost like a portal to another existence, an evolution, and this is where miracles happen.

If one human can live at a low level of existence with minimal knowledge and talent, and grows up angry and fights because he doesn’t understand why he feels that way, and rise above all the limitations set by his own confused and immature mind. If that one human could evolve…to a higher state of thinking, his life would be saved from court dates, jail time, detox vacations and getting caught treatment cycles….and dodge the bullet that is fired from that dark place.

All it takes is a thought.

Loneliness is the perfect time to start getting to know yourself. I sat down with myself tonight and cried, I laughed, and felt so human and so vulnerable. The feelings were a mix of happiness and pain, happy because I am ready to live the life of a spiritual warrior, and pain because I can feel it in the air…the cries…

I need to connect…where are my fellow spiritual warriors at? Time to fight back, and we do it with love. The real revolution is love…and when these readings inspire me to share it to anyone who has been through something hard, something traumatic, something that changed you forever…

Call it whatever you want, it is something that never leaves me, the darkness…but the dark gives me room to pray, to exercise love and expel fear, and rise up to meet the challenge of my generation. I have faith in my fellow young people. I have so much trust in the power of a country turned into a large fellowship.

The only democratic society is one that has been judged as a cult, so forget any huge public opinion on Alcoholics Anonymous they are afraid of the word ALCOHOL.

The attitude toward drinkers is still negative. What about the attitude of AA towards non-alcoholics? It is intolerant toward so many people and it divides, not unifies, the power of the Fellowship.

But the one thing that gives it validity as a true democratic party is there is no ruler. There is no president. There is no monarchy. There are millions of groups all connected by one common purpose: to recover from a sickness of mind and body. This bond makes it the best kind of gang, because they are not going to rob you, sell you drugs, or kill you for some trivial reason…we have members like that too, but we roll with LOVE and SERVICE to the person out there who is all lone and slowly dying…

To see them come back to life is truly worth all the pain and suffering we go through when one of our loved ones suffers from addiction or a hidden illness that people just don’t understand! When that happens, when they come back from the gates of hell and we hug them, kiss them, welcome them home…

we heal.

Home is where the heart is, and some hearts beat miracles. Drop that beat.

Nothing unique about it. I woke up around 1:00pm alone as I usually did, went downstairs to take my morning piss and asses the situation. I was almost out of booze but I still had some weed. Plus I had a pocket full of cash my girl gave to me the night before. A few hundred bucks in soaked and wrinkled in sweat, mostly one dollar bills. I had gotten used to it and so had all the local merchants I frequented. It all spends the same I suppose. Besides, how could I be upset? After all I was her best customer when we met. Ah well, I digress.

Time to see who is out there.

My cousin and his girl are still passed out in the other room and everyone else works…except Steve! Good ole Steve. He is always ready to party. I grab the keys to my jeep and head to the Cape to collect the boy. After finding him at his parents house having just woke up himself, we torched a bowl of my finest herb and cranked some TOOL and headed down the power lines for an off road adventure.

After a couple of stops to smoke more weed and finish off last night’s tequila we decided the bar was in our future. I brought Steve to his truck so we could race each other to Plymouth. His was the faster rig but I am the more aggressive driver and I take more risks.

Before the night ended we were kicked out of over five bars and one family restaurant for being “obscene”.

Steve sat shotgun as we left his truck at the first bar, and now he was hanging out my passenger window screaming “fuck you” and flipping the double bird to anyone including a family and I turned my MVD tires into a cloud of smoke. I don’t remember the drive, just the music. Marilyn Manson’s Anti-Christ Superstar album cranked as loud as it could possibly go.

I must have had God on my side that night.

We made it to my place without incident or accident. We had to hold each other up in order to walk(stumble) and slurred the lyrics to “Follow the Reaper” as we made our triumphant return. When we opened the door we saw my cousin wearing an empty 12 pack on his head, next to his girl and a beeramyd of epic proportions on the coffee table.

Steve and I looked at them and then at each other, we both smiled, and then we simultaneously pinched each other in the face. Both of our noses were instantly broken and bloody before the battle even commenced. I remember my cousins girl screaming and my cousin kept trying to stop us. But we were target fixated on each other. Both looking for a knock-out. At one point he even threatened to “jump in” if we didn’t stop. We paused just long enough to point and laugh at him and continued to fight.

By the time we stopped, blood was on every floor and wall.

Both of us were spent and needed sleep with buckets for the blood and vomit. Somehow Steve made it home safe and sound. We are still as close as brothers. Today we get a laugh out of the memories of our crazy past.

But we are also reminded of how lucky we both are. We have both suffered greatly in this life having similar demons feasting on our sanity. However, we both strive to recover. I can now remember most of the things I do and I pray daily.I am thankful that all of my personal stories end without death. Though I cannot say the same for my fallen brothers. I’ve lost 2 close friends to this illness in the last 6 months and another was in a coma for 90 days and suffers from permanent brain damage.

I am 30 years old but my body feels like I am middle aged. I am optimistic, and I am blessed with two beautiful sons and we are all in decent health. Life is worth living if for no other reason than love. Even the hope of a possible future love is worth striving for. I am not perfect and I will make many mistakes, but I no longer live in a self-destructive state of mind. This thing called “addiction” or “alcoholism” is trying to kill us as it lies to us with its false comfort and convinces us everything will be fine.

That’s not real life! Real life hurts sometimes and things are not always pretty. But if I try to kill the pain and suffering with drugs and booze the relief is only temporary and returns with vengeance seven-fold. The only thing it truly kills is hope and love. If you find yourself feeling hopeless, please reach out and scream for help. God shows you love and understanding through another suffering and recovering addict, or anyone who has been through something traumatic.